01/03/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty, is dismayed by the prospect of the imminent execution of two young men, Aleh Gryshkautsou, aged 29, and Andrei Burdyka, aged 28, convicted for murder during an armed robbery in 2009. A broadcast on national television on 22 February 2011 recalled that the sentence had come into force after the two men's appeals had been turned down.
11/02/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Following yesterday’s vote in the House of Commons on prisoners’ voting rights, Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD), Chair of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, made the following statement: “I am deeply disappointed by last night’s vote, in defiance of the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights on prisoner voting."
14/01/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on "The death penalty in Council of Europe member and observer states - an unacceptable violation of human rights", has welcomed the decision of the Illinois legislature to abolish the death penalty. "It will now be up to the new Governor Pat Quinn, a close ally of Barrack Obama, to sign this initiative into law. I can only encourage him to do so without hesitation," said Renate Wohlwend.
11/01/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, has ended a two-day visit to Ankara (10-11 January 2011) with a call for the Turkish authorities to make a more concerted effort to comply with Strasbourg Court judgments.
27/12/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
‘The guilty verdict and especially the very harsh sentence announced against Mr Khodorkovsky does not deliver justice but instead serves only political ends,’ stated Christos Pourgourides, Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
16/12/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE Legal Affairs Committee has called for a series of international and national investigations into evidence of disappearances, organ trafficking, corruption and collusion between organised criminal groups and political circles in Kosovo* revealed this week in a report by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE).
14/12/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Following the interest shown in the draft report on the inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in organs in Kosovo,* the rapporteur Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), in agreement with the Chair of the Legal Affairs Committee Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD), has decided to make public the text on the website of the Assembly. The text will be discussed by the committee on Thursday 16 December in Paris (Council of Europe office, 55 Avenue Kléber). Mr Marty will give a press conference on the same day at 2.30pm.
14/12/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
At a meeting in Paris on Thursday 16 December, PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights is expected to adopt a report by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE) on the inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo* at the Council of Europe office in Paris. Mr Marty will give a press conference at 2.30 pm at the same premises.
17/11/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“The case-law of the European Court of Human Rights shows that there sometimes exists a temptation to respond to terrorism with a strong-armed approach that gives public security precedence over the respect for human rights,” Lord John E. Tomlinson (United Kingdom, SOC), rapporteur on human rights and the fight against terrorism.
01/10/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
National legislators and courts across Europe must better take into account judgments of the European Court of Human Rights even when they concern violations that have occurred in other countries, the Chair of PACE’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights said today. Speaking at a conference on the principle of subsidiarity in Skopje, Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD) said this principle could be “the key to saving the Strasbourg Court from drowning in large numbers of repetitive cases”.
30/07/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s rapporteur on the death penalty has called on Thailand to abolish capital punishment, where more than 70 per cent of death row prisoners face execution for drug-related offences. Speaking in Bangkok at a seminar on “Drugs and the death penalty”, Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD) pointed out that drug-related cases were particularly prone to human error and manipulation, leading to miscarriages of justice.
15/07/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Dick Marty, PACE rapporteur on the human rights situation in the North Caucasus, has pointed out that the murderers of Natalia Estemirova, a member of Russian NGO Memorial, in Chechnya on 14 July 2009 have so far escaped punishment. "The Russian authorities must do everything possible to achieve justice in this emblematic case, as well as in others such as the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, so as to send a clear signal that the cycle of abuse and impunity will no longer be tolerated in the Chechen Republic."